Monday, February 4, 2013

In Drones We Trust?

I looked at the latest cover of Time Magazine today with a Drone on the Cover and wrote:

Domestic Drones are a Bad Idea 

and then when I opened up to page 2 I found Richard Stengel, the managing editor of Time Magazine has a similar point of view to mine. So, here I'm quoting what he said

Begin Quote:

My younger son has a toy remote-controlled helcopter that he loves to fly everywhere. It can hover for minutes on end and land on your palm, and it even has a camera. In other words, it's what the military calls and unmanned aerial vehicle---a drone. In some ways, it's a miniature version of a giant Predator. 

In the military and now in civilian life, drones are a transformative technology. They expand our reach in ways we don't.  Drones are among the most powerful weapons ever created and also among the most powerful surveillance tools. Lve Grossman's cover story poses a lot of important questions about the use of drones both in warfare and in our own lives. What is the legal right of the U.S. to use drones to kill alleged terrorists in foreign countries? Why wouldn't those countries use drones in America? The Supreme Court has said police can use planes to monitor whether you are growing marijuana in your backyard. Can they use drones to fly by your bedroom window to see if you are smoking it?

"The heart of the piece" says Lev, "is an exploration of what happens when you take a technology, which has engendered so much practical and ethical confusion in the military sphere, and introduce it into our domestic airspace." The conundrum is that our use of drones seems to be evolving faster than our ability to understand how to use them legally and ethically.

Richard Stengel Managing Editor of Time magazine.

end quote.

I too, agree that domestically this is a disaster starting to happen to all of us. Just watching Skynet in the movie "Terminator" or the sequels should give us all pause regarding these things. Whether a drone is flying, on land or sea or human looking or not they are all drones, they all have artificial intelligence which means if they are disconnected from the pilot somewhere on the ground they decide what to do themselves.  Please Think about what I'm saying here as well as what STengel and Lev Grossman are saying. My concern is mostly about a further reduction in Human rights as Americans because of drones of all kinds here in the U.S. as they proliferate. Also, each of our rights to be alive will be curtailed as terrorists and criminals gain the use of various versions of flying and land and water drones on into the future. And worst of all it likely will become difficult to impossible to solve drone murders from the air, land and on the sea.    

If you want to read the Time magazine article a drone is one the cover and the article which starts on page 26 is called, "Drone Home".

 

  

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